Nick Saban Speaks During College Sports Roundtable

Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban was among the over 50 participants at Friday's Saving College Sports roundtable, hosted by President Donald Trump at the White House East Room. Saban won seven national championships during his time as a college head coach, with six coming during his 17-year career with the Crimson Tide.

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The purpose of the roundtable discussion was to find a solution for the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics, which is hemorrhaging money due to a lack of revenue from Olympic sports and the increased costs of college football, or as Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne puts it, "the engine that pulls the train." Joining Saban in Washington, D.C. included former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer, the commissioners from the Power Four conferences, a handful of current athletic directors, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, New York Yankees President Randy Levine, NCAA president Charlie Baker, sports agent Seth Levinson, Florida A&M men's basketball coach Charlie Ward, a handful of other indivuduals who work in sports and media, and a handful of elected officials, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Notably, no active college athletes were at the roundtable.

President Trump emphasized the need for a solution, announcing he would make an executive order by the end of next week. President Trump told the group that college sports needs an enforceable salary cap, or schools will continue to lose money, jeopardizing the future of women's sports. During the discussion, House Speaker Mike Johnson, an LSU graduate, suggested that the SCORE Act would be brought back to the House floor for an attempted third vote, believing that Congress has the "votes necessary" to pass the Act.

Saban started his portion of the discussion with a question. "What are the guiding principles for the future of college athletics?

"All athletics. I'm talking about football, basketball, Olympic sports, revenue, nonrevenue, it doesn't matter," Saban said. "My goal as a coach for my players, our players, was to help them be more successful in life; that we would create an atmosphere and environment that would help them through personal development, academic support - 668 degrees in 17 years at Alabama - and help them develop a career as a football player. That was our goal, so that they were creating value in life, and we were preparing them for their future past athletics. So, what happened?

"In this current system that we have, that became impossible to do, because people, instead of making decisions about creating value for their future, they were making decisions about how much money could they make at whichever school they could go to or transfer to."

Saban laid out what needed to happen plainly. "We need to develop an effective system of revenue sharing, authentic name, image, and likeness. Authentic being, you have marketing value, which now we have collectives, which just create opportunities, which has become pay-for-play."

At the end of the discussion, President Trump said he would sit down and write an executive order. The goal is to use ideas presented by the people in the room and "common sense." The order will be written within a week, per Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger. Based on comments made by the president on Friday, he wants to return to the "old system" before NIL and the transfer portal ran rampant across the sport.

“We will be sued, and it will go before a court...that’s the only way this thing is going to be solved," President Trump said at the end of the roundtable.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.